Design Management

Announcing the release of my new eBook available on Amazon.com, The Design Manager: Successful Management of the Design Process.

My new book is a culmination of my Senior Project Design Manager experience during my time as an Imagineer with Walt Disney Imagineering, and my successful design leadership roles during my twenty plus years as a practicing, licensed Architect.

Theories about successful design management are great, but real-world design management processes and the tools a Design Manager can use on active projects are essential.

Learn Guiding principles that have driven me to:

• Become a successful Senior Project Design Manager at a Fortune 100 company working on large, complex projects.
• Become a sought-after Consulting Design Executive assisting Commercial and Themed Entertainment market segment clients.
• Become a successful licensed Architect and design team leader on both large and small projects.

What you will Learn:

• The importance of identifying design risk assessment activities.
• How to create a Design Implementation Strategy.
• How to maximize your project milestone Design Reviews.
• Learn the differences in the Design Manager’s role depending on the  
• Project’s implementation contract type.
• Learn processes and skills perfected in real-world projects used to lead 
• Real-world design teams.
• Learn the importance of Design Change Management Strategies and much more!

The Successful Management of the Design Process is the difference between a Design Manager with a calm confidence to lead a successful project and design team… and a frantic leader who lacks the skills needed at each phase of design and implementation. The difference between an average project design manager to … being sought after as the best leader of the design process and design team through all phases of the project. 

Grab your copy today of The Design Manager: Successful Management of the Design Process.

As an Architect and former owner’s design representative with Walt Disney Imagineering who has worked on both sides of the fence – as professional design service provider and as the client representative who hired and managed design professionals – there are several missteps I consistently dealt with. Here are my top five:

1. Do Not Underestimate a Sophisticated Client

Sophisticated clients and seasoned owner representatives should know their end-product, and what it takes to deliver a successful project more than the design professionals and general contractors they hire.

Too many times I have heard the phrases, when I was the client and interviewing design professionals or general contractors, “We’ve designed many schools across the country so we are the experts on delivering themed attractions.”  Or my favorite, “Well, we have built and designed dozens of hospitals over the past ten years, so we know how to design and build theme parks.”

Design professionals that are trying to break into new building types should consider demonstrating their firm’s successful design processes, how they successfully manage their design team during difficult or complex projects, and define how they will serve the client’s needs and project program requirements. If the client deems you qualified enough for an interview for a new project – even if the firm does not have a laundry list of that specific building types – the client most likely believes your technically qualified for the project.

Be confident, but be humble that you’re not the only expert in the room during the interview. Specifically demonstrate your firm’s expertise at delivering quality design documents and managing the design process specific to the project and specific to the client.

Most clients who have a healthy capital spending program are constantly looking for new or multiple design teams to deliver their projects; not having a portfolio of their specific building type does not always disqualify you, your firm or your design team from getting the job.

I also suggest going after a smaller project to get your foot in the door. Going after the client’s largest, newest project is a difficult path to prove your prowess.

Establishing designer-client trust on a few smaller projects can often lead to a long-term relationship and larger, more complex projects down the road.

2. Lack of Design Team Consistency

During the interview phase of a design team, the client’s design manager should request as a portion of the Request for Proposal deliverable a specific list of and resumes for the design team members being proposed to be utilized throughout the duration of the project.

The client’s design manager should retain this list of individuals once the design contract has been awarded. In many instances, it may be specific individual design professionals on a winning design team that sealed the deal. The design team’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ players that were proposed for the duration should remain on the project for the duration as required.

When I was the client’s design manager and design teams would internally poach their own ‘A’ and ‘B’ players early in the design phases for newer projects, I as the Design Manager had to call out the design team or firm in question. It was my responsibility to remind them that we the client contracted a very specific team, with specific talented individuals we knew could get the job done.

I have personally been on projects where this took place and I saw the flaws and inconsistencies in the design documents to prove my point. As the client’s design manager, I had to work with the contracted design team to get the talented team members we as the client retained back on the project.

3. Follow-through with Promises

Item No. 3 works in tandem with Items No. 2. If a design team begins to show a lack of consistency in within their design team’s ranks; if ‘A’ players are being shuttled to new, different projects; if design team members state clearly they will address specific Code issues with the Authority Having Jurisdiction; etc.

It is the client’s design representative’s or client’s design manager’s responsibility to make sure the design team is following-through with their promises. A Design Manager should be attentive enough, experienced enough, and a subject matter expert on similar projects to see and react to the early signs of his/her design team’s actions that may indicate lack of follow-through and lack of adhering to their contractual requirements.

4. Poor Design Documents

As we all know, poor design documents can lead to a multitude of issues both during the design phases and during the implementation or construction phase.

Poor design documents that do not meet the minimum level of completion that is both defined in the design team’s contract and defined by the client’s company standards may cause the following issues:

• Failure to achieve early project estimates to provide project budgetary metrics.
• May affect the design team’s design phase milestone payment value and schedule.
• Missing design information in the early design phases will be amplified and compounded in the later design phases or even worse may be carried over to the construction or implementation phase.
• Design documents with missing or partial information may affect project specific Code requirements that if not addressed early in the design phase will cause major design changes during construction.

To assist in avoiding these and many other issues not listed stemming from poor design documents, the client’s Design Manager should have regularly scheduled design reviews of the design team’s progress and milestone drawings.

Design reviews of drawings and documents can yield valuable design input, increase team collaboration, and is a forum in which the owner, client and/or stakeholders can engage the design process at a deeper level.

The Design Manager led design review should merely be a review to confirm all the previous design issue work sessions with the client or project stakeholders. If any new design issues come to light in the design review – which they will – the Design Manager should note those topics, and schedule future, specific work sessions to resolve the new issues.

5. Asking for new projects while the current project is falling apart

When I was the client’s design representative at Disney, one thing that would irritate me more is a design team that would probe me for new work while their performance on their current project was not going well.

Like most projects, even the most successful projects will have moments where the design process is riddled with issues, the design documents are not up to company standards, or the design team is not performing at its known maximum potential.

One of the worst times for a design team, an architect, and/or an engineer to market their client is during times of dissension regarding the design team’s performance on an on-going project with the same client.

I personally experienced this during my time at Disney. While I tried to be fair and understand why a design team was not performing well on a project and assist them in being successful and make corrections; an understanding of “good timing” is everything. During those few weeks or months when they were not performing up to my and the company’s standard’s was not the right time to ask me about upcoming or being short-listed on new projects.

If you would like to learn more about how to become a successful Design Manager utilizing real world processes, check out my online, self paced course: The Design Manager: Successful Management of the Design Process. This course incorporates my twenty plus years of successful A & E Industry design project team management skills and processes I used during my time as a Senior Project Design Manager at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Here are five ways to improve your design management process from a former Senior Project Design Manager at Walt Disney Imagineering and licensed Architect.

1. Create A Design Implementation Strategy

If you’re a leader of your firm’s design group or a Design Manager and you are not creating, implementing and managing a Design Implementation Strategy, you are missing out on an opportunity to provide a framework and guideline for your design team and design consultants. 

The Design Implementation Strategy is a singular or set of documents written by the Design Manager providing an executive summary of how they plan to manage the project. The Strategy should be a narrative upon which the Design Manager describes to their team members (both design and non-design team members) how they plan to approach and successfully manage the project’s design process.

Much like project design specification manuals, the Design Implementation Strategy is a document or group of documents submitted to the entire team early in the project that, in the event of question or conflict regarding the scope of or approach to the project’s design, can act as a historical record of the limits of the design scope which the Design Manager is assuming responsibility and accountability.

The Design Implementation Strategy should be written in a clear and concise manner so that any individual with varying or little knowledge of the project, can coherently understand the project’s design strategy and how it will be managed.

2. Design Manager’s Input on Project Implementation

The Design Manager should be one of the project’s responsible individuals included in high level discussions regarding a project’s implementation strategy. For the built environment, the Design Manager – often a seasoned, licensed design professional – has typically worked on many projects utilizing at least two of the three major forms of project implementation and contracting. Those being:

• Design-Build
• Design-Bid-Build
• Integrated Project Delivery or integrated forms of agreements.

While the Design Manager’s role will differ slightly depending on which of the three major forms of implementation the project leaders or management group decide to move forward with; the Design Manager should be included in the early discussions as each of the three types of implementation strategies will affect the Design Manager’s design strategy and most likely the value of the project’s overall design fees.

The Design Manager should have a voice in the early discussions to convey to the project team leaders how the cost and design implementation will vary between the three implementation strategies.

3. Focus and Get Specific!

How many times have we been in design specific or design issue meetings with a room full of team members that have no direct influence or professional knowledge on the outcome of the design or accountability of the final design, yet the team leaders wield their opinion like a sword.

While I’m a believer in gathering a multitude of opinions and perspectives on solving high level design challenges; in a focused design issue discussion that requires design professionals or design expertise to resolve the issue I would argue the fewer the individuals the better.

A Design Manager and/or leader of the project’s design process should strive to focus their design specific meetings or design charrettes to cover one subject or design issue. The Design Manager should also strive to invite only the responsible individuals to the design discussions that are both empowered to make decisions in the meeting and those design consultants or team members that are directly affected by the singular topic being discussed.

I have used this strategy many times to solve specific design related issues with great success. Most likely you will have more than one design issue to resolve; the Design Manager should schedule a separate focused meeting to resolve that issue which may require a different or similar list of attendees.

4. Harness the Power of Design Reviews

Design reviews of milestone drawings and documents can yield valuable design input, increase team collaboration, and is a forum in which the owner, client and/or stakeholders can engage the design process at a deeper level.

A Design Manager should schedule and host the design review meeting for the documents they have formally released to the client and project stakeholders. A successful design review should merely be what the name implies; a design review. It should not be a working design session or charrette. At the time of the design review, the Design Manager and design team should already being working with the client or project stakeholders to resolve and discuss specific design issues.

The design review is a review to confirm all the previous design issue work sessions with the client or project stakeholders. If any new design issues come to light in the design review – which they will – the Design Manager should note those topics, and schedule future, specific work sessions to resolve the new issues.

Design reviews are a forum in which the design team and a project’s non-design team responsible individuals can review the progress and evolution of a project’s design. Having regular, successful design reviews promote valuable collaboration between the project’s design team and the project’s stakeholders.

In many instances, the project’s client or stakeholders – during design reviews – may come to valuable realizations that can affect the outcome and overall design of a project they may have not recognized until the day of the design review. This information should be recorded and and can assist the Design Manager during the design phases to resolve issues prior to construction.

5. Design Change Management Strategy

Most likely the two least desirable words any project team or client wants to hear: design change. All projects at some point, either in the design phases and/or implementation phase, will require change to the design, whether it’s due to value engineering, statutory requirements, owner or client driven change, etc.

For a multitude of reasons, the Design Manager should have a process to document the cause and impact of the design modifications. During the design and implementation phases of a project, the Design Manager should document all deviations of design that differ from the contracted scope of design services – outlined and described in the design team’s contract.

The Design Manager should provide a narrative specifically describing the design modifications and a meaningful justification for the design changes. Using a standardized document to capture the validation for the design team to make design modifications above and beyond their contracted scope is important for many reasons, but most importantly it is a record document that will be shared with the project’s responsible individuals.

The Design Change Management Strategy document should highlight potential design cost increases (and the need for add-services), the potential impacts to the design schedule as they relate to the overall project schedule and is a document that assists in curbing any “amnesia” of early design changes that affect the overall project cost or project cost settlement at the end of the project.

If you would like to learn more about how to become a successful Design Manager utilizing real world processes, check out my online, self paced course: The Design Manager: Successful Management of the Design Process. This course incorporates my twenty plus years of successful A & E Industry design project team management skills and processes I used during my time as a Senior Project Design Manager at Walt Disney Imagineering.